The King James Bible

A Short History From Tyndale to Today

"The King James Bible was the result of an extraordinary effort over nearly a century to make many good English translations and turn them into what the translators called 'one principal good one, not justly to be excepted against'. David Norton traces the work of Tyndale and his successors, analysing the translation and revisions of two representative passages. His fascinating new account follows in detail the creation of the KJB, including attention to the translators' manuscript work. He also examines previously unknown evidence such as the diary of John Bois, the only man who made notes on the translation. At the centre of the book is a thorough discussion of the first edition. The latter part of the book traces the printing and textual history of the KJB and provides a concise account of its changing scholarly and literary reputations"--"The most important book in English religion and culture, the King James Bible, began to be created at some unknown moment nearer three than two thousand years before 1604, the year in which James I, once king of Scotland, now also king of England, assembled the religious leaders of the land at Hampton Court and, seemingly by chance, ordered the making of a new translation of the Bible. That unknown original moment of creation came when the descendants of Abraham moved beyond telling to writing down their beliefs and the stories of their heritage. It was a crucial moment in civilisation. The ancient Hebrews began to be the people of the written word. Their writings became the collection of books we know as the Old Testament. It enshrined their knowledge of themselves and of their relationship to their God. Without it they might not have survived as a people, and without it the Christian world -- perhaps also the Islamic world -- would have been something unimaginably different from what it is. The word of God was all in all to the religious Jews. In the beginning God talked with Adam and Eve as a lord to his tenants, person to person, then to Moses 'face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend' (Exod. 33:11). The intimacy might have declined and, by the timeofthe young Samuel, the wordofthe Lord had become 'precious' (1 Sam. 3:1), that is, both rare and valuable. God still spoke through his prophets, and they could say, 'thus saith the Lord'. But for ordinary people he spoke most surely in the words of the book. These words came to be guarded as the greatest treasure, for God and the word were the same thing: 'the Word was God' (John 1:1)"--